Depositing American check into Israeli bank account

coloredleaves

Fri, Aug 10 2018, 8:06 am

Trying to figure out how to give money to our couple in Israel. If we give them post dates checks for a few months will they be able to open an israel bank account and deposit the checks without any commission/ penalty? Alternatively can they withdraw cash without fee from an American account? Which banks in America if so?

shabbatiscoming

Fri, Aug 10 2018, 8:22 am

With a chevk they will loose some money.
Ask in america about banks that have no internationalatm charges. Because if they will have atm chargesrhey can be rather large.

Shuly

Fri, Aug 10 2018, 9:01 am

They should open a Capital One 360 checking account, which has free ATM's in Israel.
You can deposit or transfer money into the account and they can withdraw it in Israel.

Here is a referrer code, where you can get a $25 bonus: https://captl1.co/2LUQOOg
Choose the checking account option.

This is what we use in Israel and it's the best option that we've found.

devash1

Fri, Aug 10 2018, 10:25 am

Have been here for 12 years and never knew about that option. I have a Capital One credit card but not a checking account. How much does it cost? Do you withdraw shekels or dollars from it or can you do both? We make dollars so that sounds like it might be a good option for us. Not even sure why I opened this thread but thank you so much for the information, Shuly!

Shuly

Sat, Aug 11 2018, 7:37 pm

The account is free and you can link it to any other online bank account that you currently have to easily make transfers into it.
You can only take out the money in shekalim, but since there are no fees, it's a great rate.

Just make sure to take out the money from a bank's ATM. There are some privately owned ATM's in Israel (there is one by the big bus stop on Rechov Bar Ilan in Yerushalayim) and those private ATM's do charge a fee.

I'm glad this helped!

Teomima

Sat, Aug 11 2018, 9:50 pm

So that 360 account sounds interesting, I had never heard of that before. Otherwise I was going to suggest doing one of two things, or both: you can open a foreign currency account in an Israeli bank (this is what we did to handle all the dollar checks we received at our wedding) or, if (at least one of) the couple are also American, they can just have a US account and save the money they put in there as spending money for when they're in the US (such is what I currently do with any $ checks we receive, such as occasional gifts or tax returns). Warning if they choose to do the latter : Bank of America does not let you remote bank internationally, at least not from Israel (so you can't, for example, deposit a check via the app). But there are other banks that do.

essie14

Sun, Aug 12 2018, 12:25 am

Teomima wrote:

I deposit US checks using the Bank of America app and the Chase app with no problems from Israel.

OP, you’ll lose the most money depositing US checks into an Israeli account. At the very least , take the check to a money changer and you’ll get a better rate.

devash1

Sun, Aug 12 2018, 2:46 am

Once again thank you so much. I'm definitely going to look into this that after the kids go back to school. Since we make dollars this could really save us a lot of money that we don't have to pay in change fees. Plus I know that they take a percentage off the rate.

Teomima

Sun, Aug 12 2018, 2:52 am

essie14 wrote:

I deposit US checks using the Bank of America app and the Chase app with no problems from Israel.

Don't mean to hijack the thread, but how?? I can't even download the app from Israel. When I spoke to BOA, they said it's not a service they offer to all international locations.

essie14

Sun, Aug 12 2018, 3:46 am

Teomima wrote:

Don't mean to hijack the thread, but how?? I can't even download the app from Israel. When I spoke to BOA, they said it's not a service they offer to all international locations.

I have an iPhone and my Apple store is set to the US store.
You can always download a free VPN and use that for downloading the app and using it if it still doesn’t work for you.

Teomima

Sun, Aug 12 2018, 3:49 am

essie14 wrote:

I have an iPhone and my Apple store is set to the US store.
You can always download a free VPN and use that for downloading the app and using it if it still doesn’t work for you.

Aha, thank you.

EnEf

Sun, Aug 12 2018, 3:42 pm

We have the Chase Sapphire credit card. There is no international foreign exchange fee. Our salary and money from relatives is deposited in our American bank account and then we just pay the credit card bill online by transferring from the American account. Then there are no fees at all.